Holding a candle in the Temple

Sacred Mysteries: A Norfolk window depicts the Temple in Jerusalem

One panel shows the Virgin Mary standing in the Temple before Simeon, who holds the Child Jesus and is, no doubt, delivering his canticle of praise, the Nunc Dimittis. Behind Mary stands Joseph, holding two doves in a basket, with a lit candlePhoto: WWW.BRIDGEMANART.COM

The gables of the English Whisky distillery enliven the mile or two walk from Harling Road station to the village of East Harling in Norfolk. The church of St Peter and Paul, with its tower and spire and steep roofs, is worth the walk.

I think Anne Harling had a hand in the enlargement of the church and building of the spire, which dates from the second half of the 15th century. She was one of those formidable medieval women who outlived two local magnates to marry, as his third wife, Lord Scrope, whom she also outlived by a few weeks in 1498.

The great east window of the church still shines with 20 scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary. A knight with a pudding-basin haircut, kneeling in proper armour, is depicted at bottom left, Sir Robert Wingfield, Anne’s second husband, who died in 1480, and to the right, Sir William Chamberlain, her first, who died in 1462.

Higher up, one panel shows the Virgin Mary standing in the Temple before Simeon, who holds the Child Jesus and is, no doubt, delivering his canticle of praise, the Nunc Dimittis, proclaiming Jesus as “a light to lighten the Gentile: and the glory of thy people Israel”. Behind Mary stands Joseph, holding two doves in a basket, with a lit candle.

The scene depicts the events celebrated by Candlemas, which falls today. Tonight you may take down your Christmas decorations.

The candles of Candlemas refer to the words of Simeon, and, as the historian Eamon Duffy has pointed out, the sermon that the parishioners would have heard on this great feast day would most likely have mentioned that the candle is in a way like Jesus himself: the wax, wick and flame being like his body, soul and divinity.

In the Lady Chapel of Winchester cathedral, one of the wall panels painted in grisaille shows a woman asleep in church but holding a candle. This illustrates a story in the bestselling Golden Legend (famous for 200 years before Caxton printed it) of a woman who missed the Candlemas procession but dreamt of the saints in heaven taking part in the festal liturgy. An angel gave the dreamer a candle, which she found in her grasp when she awoke.

The story shows how the thoughts of lay people at church in the 15th century were in two places apart from their immediate surroundings. They felt themselves to be taking part in a heavenly celebration in the presence of God, along with the angels and saints. (So the blessed candles that they took home were a visible connection with heaven, and would certainly frighten away wicked spirits.)

They also placed themselves in the biblical scenes that the day marked. The stained-glass depiction of St Joseph bearing a candle (just as parishioners did on Candlemas day) did not mean anyone thought Joseph would actually have carried a tall wax taper. But he stood as a proxy for their presence in the Temple to witness the presentation of Jesus, which they called up in their imaginations.

This sort of spiritual practice for lay people was advocated by books such as the early 16th-century Meditations for Ghostly Exercise, which encouraged worshippers to call to mind the events that were being commemorated in church.

At Beverley, Yorkshire, the celebrations spilled out of church into an outdoor dramatic and musical representation of the Bible events, like a mystery play.

As for the candles, those held in the parishioners’ procession were donated to the parish church. In the Middle Ages, candles, of bees’ wax, were expensive, so the gift of a candle embodied a solid amount of work.

The donated candles would burn, perhaps, before an image of the Virgin Mary. What burning a candle before an image means is not easy to say. No one thought that a burning candle did any good on its own. But it stood for the intentions and prayers of the donor, just as a birthday card stands for good wishes.